Open Thread March 29

Cell service in the Bus Tunnel* is here for T-Mobile users and will be here for everybody soon. And if you need to call 9-1-1, you can no matter what carrier you have.

It’s an overall good, but there are downsides. I will be sad to see the end of people being too loud getting cut off by a tunnel. What a joy that always is, gone because technology is amazing.

* I know, but it’s still the Bus Tunnel to me. This is really the only thing I can think of where I’m inexplicably cranky.**

**There are a lot of things I’m cranky about, but they’re usually is a reasonable explanation. Or at least an explanation. I know I should call it the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel or at least the Transit Tunnel. And given that most of the time I’m there for transit that isn’t a bus, that would make the most sense in general. And yet, here I am.

What republicans do.Trump’s Plan To Gut Legal Aid Would Do The Most Damage In States That Supported Him Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed cutting all funding for the Legal Services Corp., a nonprofit that Congress established in 1974, which funds more than 130 legal service organizations across the country. legal aid organizations in states that went for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton received an average of 27.5 percent of their budget through this program, compared to 45.9 percent for organizations based in states that voted for Trump.

“In 12 states, our grantees get more than half their funding from us. In a place like Alabama, our grantee gets more than 80 percent of its funding from us.”

You’re not cranky, Carl. You’re old. Once a dog has its spots, it’s stuck with them. Youngsters can shift gears when things change, but old farts like you are hard-wired, so you’ll always call it the “Bus” Tunnel because your ancient brain is not reprogrammable. But if calling yourself “cranky” makes you feel better about being old, go for it.

@1 Republicans yearn for the days prior to no-fault worker’s comp, when injured workers had to prove employer negligence in court and contributory negligence barred most claims (i.e., if the worker was even a little bit at fault, he collected nothing).

Young American people don’t want construction work because it’s hard and dirty work. They all grew up in an environment stressing tooth brushing and hand washing. They spend very little time outdoors, so they aren’t interested in swinging a hammer on a construction site. in short, they’re not interested in getting dirty and tired at work.

@2 Not sure what to make of this comment, so I’ll give it my best shot: Doctor Dumbfuck seems to feel Froggy owes it to society to get killed on the job so he won’t be a drain on Social Security and Medicare in his old age.

@9 Kinda like farm labor. After Drumpf chases all the Mexicans back to Mexico, all those sweet-smelling American trust fund babies will have neither a roof over their head nor food on their table. It’ll be interesting to see who they vote for then.

According to the results of a new statewide survey conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) at UC Berkeley, majorities of Californians disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president, and believe that the changes in laws and policies that his administration is proposing will negatively affect California overall and in many specific policy areas. The largest proportions of voters feel the state will be negatively affected in areas relating to the rights of minorities, the environment, health care, international trade and women’s rights. Nevertheless, by a 53% to 47% margin, slightly more voters prefer that when state leaders disagree with the president they should try to work with him even if it means making compromises, rather than opposing him if it risks negative consequences and losses in federal funding.

It’s very unlikely the Democrats and Republicans will work together on anything at all. The liberal progressives of the Democrats really, really wanted Hillary Clinton to win, and they also support Elizabeth Warren, too, should Hillary not choose to run in 2020. Th progressives are still highly pissed off about the Electoral Collge results in 2016. Working with the Republicans ain’t gonna happen.

The Republicans, on the other hand, are a house divided. The only thing they agree on is that they won’t work with the Democrats at all on any subject.

In short, what we’re looking at four years of nothing but arguing and conflict.

I bet the Republicans will vote to raise the debt ceiling. It’s in their best interest to do so. Politicians are self-serving people, so they’ll raise the debt ceiling in April, and they will conveniently forget their non-support of raising the debt ceiling back when the Democrats were in charge.

@17 “Th progressives are still highly pissed off about the Electoral Collge results in 2016.”

No, we’re not. We accept the results of the 2016 election, which is something many Republicans never did after the 2008 and 2012 elections in which Two Term President Barack Hussein Obama, unlike Preznit Putin Pal, won both the electoral and popular votes.

Probably everyone here has had sucky jobs for one reason or another and I’m no different.

In college I worked the dish room in the dorm cafeteria, cleaned frat boy apartments during the summers, cleaned pools, re-surfaced apartment parking lots. I spent a summer comparing financial aid apps to the 1040s – would rather work the dish room to doing that again. The only non-sucky job I had was umpiring softball – five-game nites at $8 per was good dough in the mid-80s. The two-game nites weren’t such a great deal.

Just because the world needs ditch-diggers, too, doesn’t mean everyone has to be one, ‘froggy.

@28 Well, waddya know, Doctor Dumbfuck used to work in his forgotten younger days. I say “forgotten” because somewhere along the line he became disconnected from his experiences as a minimum wage slave. Or maybe medical school turned him into an asshole because the proctology students needed one to practice on.

@31 Now that I’m retired, I get to suckle on the government teat (i.e., social security and Medicare). Thank you for paying taxes to support me in my old age and help me buy my medicines. I’m a lot of disreputable things (e.g., capitalist leech), but ingrate isn’t one of them.

33, I for one very much would have preferred that your Glorious Putin-Puppet Cheeto God had lost to the International Crime Syndicate of Home Office Email Servers and Third World Development*. Consequently I’m not obligated to make excuses all day, every day.

*Mostly because as things stand, the number of international destinations I can enjoy traveling to without having to fear that my food has been spit into is diminishing with every Sunday night Tweet-storm. I suppose I may be consoled if Comrade-Pissident Pussy-Grabber succeeds in driving down the dollar

“Outrage is growing at Republicans following a controversial vote Tuesday to repeal Internet privacy protections that were approved by the Federal Communications Commission in the final days of the Obama administration.

“Privacy advocates, consumer groups and the tech community are all attacking the decision. It was quickly panned by both the editorial board of The New York Times and by commenters on conservative media outlet Breitbart News. …

“Fight for the Future, a digital rights group that helped organize protests for net neutrality, is planning to put up billboards naming the legislators who voted to repeal. … The tech industry, which has been relatively quiet on issues like net neutrality under the new administration, also expressed dismay at the vote. …

“The Senate voted along party lines to undo the rules last week. The resolution now goes to Trump’s desk. The White House said Tuesday it ‘strongly supports’ the repeal.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: Trump’s approval ratings set two new record lows this week. Looks like he’s trying for two more next week. Two months in, a lot of people who voted GOP already have buyer’s remorse. Doesn’t look good for Trump & Co.

One can support mass transit and be opposed to ST3. I opposed ST3 and I have used mass transit probably over ten thousand times, starting when I was six years old, riding the bus to music lessons downtown during the days of Seattle Transit.

I don’t think it has much to do with ST3. It has to do with a major cell provider based here installing it for the PR value of having the connectivity throughout the system first. Look for local targeted add around town.

For you stock junkies, I bought some more Bank of New York Mellon today. The overall market is expensive, but BK has a reasonable valuation. Its P/E is about 13.5 forward and 14.7 trailing, not a bargain, but buyable. I like this bank because its business model is fee-based rather than dependent on loan income, and it has less exposure to bad loans than typical commercial banks. (Currently, trouble is building in the auto lending sector, although it will never reach the crisis level that mortgages did, because auto loans are a much smaller component of household debt. However, we are seeing signs that many consumers are once again overextended, and bad loans are increasing in this corner of the credit market.) The dividend yield is low, under 2%, but the low payout ratio leaves ample room for steady future dividend increases. This is also a relatively low volatility stock, which will appeal to skittish investors in these unpredictable times. I’m not expecting a major correction in the near term, primarily because the global economy is improving, but this stock should hold up well if we get a downturn. With the additional shares I purchased today, BK is now one of my top 5 holdings. As always, you should diversify; I don’t like to have more than 5% of my portfolio in any one stock, and I also spread my money across most of the S&P’s 11 sectors, except I don’t own any utilities or REITs; you should avoid bond proxies in the current market and interest rate environment.

Never mind what science says about this pesticide. Growers’ profits will decide what the science needs to say, and then the science will be whatever I say it is. The business of America is business, and nothing else! Making America great again!

What steve said….exactly. but carl and tensir are not deft enough to get that concept.

Funny how none of the choo choo worshippers never support actually paying more for their own ride…always on someone elses dime. Pay five or ten bucks per ride then see what happens with the worshippers.

And we liberal taxpayers in King County have been paying for roads in the rest of the state for years. How about you and Nils get together, and come up with a plan to end your chronic, shameful dependency upon us King County liberals?

61, In all the history of human kind there is no disabusing the “salt-o-the-earth” toothless hillbilly shit farmer of the enduring notion that he is taxed to pay for “big city” boondoggles. Like racism, that zombie lie is woven into their political and civic DNA from before birth. At bottom it springs from the basic false but very American premise that “land” is more economically productive than “people”. Still, you will never meet a modern farmer who doesn’t at least secretly harbor dreams of unrestricted subdivision and development riches.

Why, yes, you could buy BK with its relatively high price-to-book value, spending $47,400 or so for 1,000 shares, and take your chances.

Or, you could spend zero, sell 10 contracts of the June ’18 Put with a strike price of 45, collect roughly $810 or so, up front, and keep all of that $47k in something else. Like cash, or in an untapped brokerage line of credit. Or in a stock without the sucky prospects of BK. JPM, for instance.

As long as you’re going to have future cash available to pay for the shares if they’re put to you, you don’t have a problem selling that BK put.

If the stock price drops and the shares are put to you, you saved more than $2 per share compared with Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit’s buy-in price. If the stock remains stable, you collected the premium for the put sale and paid nothing. If the stock rises, you sell another naked put in June and collect another up-front premium without paying out any capital.

Check out the price-to-book of Citigroup and B of A. Check out the price to book of First Third. They’re all cheaper than BK.

JP Morgan Chase has a price-to-book nearly equal to that of BK. It’s a market leader, and has a lower PE ratio and a higher dividend (2.27% vs 1.63%) yield than BK.

You’ll rarely be wrong if you do something very different than what Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit suggests.

@57 says the stalker who stalked me wanting to know when I was leaving the Country.

You are about as fake and a fraud as they come. You have no respect or concern for anyone other than yourself or people like yourself. And you get free blow jobs from Steve, right Steve, you always seem to agree with the Stalker.

Says the guy who accused me of having too many names when he has more than me. You are a fucking hypocrite and your bully tactics wont work, they fuel me with more gas.

Also, we people in the not-King County pay taxes, too. Guess what? We also get to pay for lots of things that are not in our particular counties, too.

I neither said nor implied otherwise. What I did say was, the net flow of tax dollars, including for WSDOT, is away from King County. You drive on roads for which I pay and which I will never use, yet that never seems to factor into any of the lectures we King County liberals get on the subject.

@62, after 30 years of paying taxes for education at the state, local and federal level and with no kids, you have no right to complain about taxes. Pay them and shut up or get real and start speaking for people that pay for your shit.

I never said anything about it making money or paying fir itself. Nice try at putting words in my mouth. Fail.

61

Lolz @ the child tensor. Guess what ski bus boi, i live in king county and pay a hell of a lot more in taxes than you do. I doubt you pay much at all in any taxes, so get off your high horse. No car, no mortgage, below avg income, you dont pay jack shit in taxes…but you want your choo choo for free on the backs of everyone else.

Every transportation mode is subsidized in one way or another, but ST riders are subsidized to the point that its completely out of balance with everything else.

So tensor, how much more you willing to pay for each ride?? $5? $10??

Grow up a little…someday maybe you can be an adult with adult like responsibilities

‘We are ministering to family members to help them deal with this tragedy. Counselors will be on hand at the church tomorrow. If you’re a Christian, you can pray for those who lost their loved ones and for the church family.’

I agree, you should base your arguments on facts you simply make up out of nothing more than your own aggrieved senses of entitlement and victimhood, because attempting to use real facts never worked for you, and probably never will.

@73:

We thought about it. Then we voted Yes on ST3. Keep whining, loser.

@75:

Where did I say I didn’t want roads? Nice try at putting words in my mouth. Fail.

Trump demagogued the coal issue, and won’t be able to keep his promise to restore coal mining jobs. Why? Because clean air regulations have little to do with the coal industry’s woes. The mining jobs aren’t coming back because of (1) abundant cheap natural gas and (2) automation. Sorry, boys, but your votes for the Orange Jesus got you exactly nothing.

Roger Rabbit Commentary: If you voted for Trump, I don’t care if you have a pension. Well, I sorta still do, but it’s out of my hands now. For years and years, I did everything I could for you. But you decided to vote against yourself, and the consequence of that is helping you now is beyond my meek power and will require divine intervention. As in: God helps those who help themselves.

@55 Republicans are fine with malformed and brain-damaged babies, especially if there’s a profit to be made from it. Their fierce opposition to abortion, of course, has nothing to do with the babies; it’s about controlling women. If there are two historical privileges Republicans don’t want to give up, it’s black servitude and male domination.

So in other words you don’t want to pay a single dime out of your pocket for the transportation that you use other than a measly ticket price. Good thing other people are around to pay for your transportation. Now run along

Why the hell are we debating ST3 in this thread? We voted on it last fall and the “yes” faction won. Like it or not, it’s a done deal, and we’re stuck with the taxes. We couldn’t repeal the taxes even if a majority of voters wanted to, because that would impair contract obligations.

You really don’t get it. Commuters are using ST and will continue to do so in numbers far greater than projected now that the University is in the System. Ravenna will be in it very soon. It will be used in numbers far greater than you imagine when it is complete.

So who is using it and keeping their cars off the road. 1. People going to Capital Hill from the U or Pioneer Square. 2. People going to sport at either stadium 3. People going to and from the airport 4. People going from their office DT to Capital Hill either during lunch or Happy Hour. 5. People buying houses close to rail for the majority reason that it is close to rail. 6. and on and on.

You still can’t dance around the fact that once build a rail network the vehicles used on it have much greater lifespans and lower maintenance costs than buses.

Buses exacerbate traffic in Seattle. If you convince the 66,000 rides a day on Link to take the bus, how many 10s of billions will be spent buying, maintaining and fueling new buses and the roads they tear up? If say you triple the number of buses on city streets on the most frequently traveled routes along the Link line how will that effect traffic as they stop every 1/3 mile to pick up riders? If we built bus only lanes, why that’s a war on cars and a single occupancy vehicle should be the ultimate right of way!

And conveniently, you ignore the obvious. I drive across the 520 bridge maybe once a year. I generally don’t drive. Why aren’t you paying incredibly high gas taxes for it? It cost 5 billion dollars. Why am I paying property taxes to repair I-90 past Ellensburg a stretch of road I drive once every three years at best? Shouldn’t the trucking companies hauling fruit pay for all that somehow? It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s NOT FAIR!!!!!

You say they won’t use it. BUT…picture this. You live and work in Bellevue, don’t commute but the little league team is going to a Mariner game. The bus takes longer to get to Safeco than driving so the $20 parking seems worth it. Once you can gather all the rugrats and get on a train and be there faster than driving and finding a parking spot and not pay for gas and parking, well… These people will never, ever ride buses to Seattle. It remains to be seen how many of them will ride trains but it is a much greater number than currently use ST in any form.

78, Pleases me no end to hear that the hillbilly “jokes”* are upsetting Trump’s conspiratlors.

*Calling it “jokes” is akin to complaining that being called racist is “insulting”. These aren’t jokes or insults. They are accurate descriptions. That these things are upsetting is perfectly natural. Like pain, this is an indication of a need to change.

My guess is that Pisscan hates my blueprints even more than Carl hates my pickup truck.

“Why the hell are we debating ST3 in this thread?”

Although I didn’t support it, my problem isn’t with ST3. My problem is with the self-righteous, like Carl, who unloaded a ton of incoherent hate on me for my merely mentioning that I own a pickup. He also heaped scorn on elderly friends who can barely walk, hating them for not walking a mile or more to a ST station and instead driving cars to destinations which are also nowhere near an ST station. And if they are unfortunate enough to drive past Carl, the pious SOB gives them the finger.

@62, @88 Last I heard, King County exports $130 million a year of gas taxes to other counties, and as that was several years ago, so I’m sure it’s more now. Only one other county — as I recall, Pierce County — was not a net recipient of road welfare from metro Seattle taxpayers. It’s pretty much the same story with schools, libraries, and the plethora of other public services in the low-population counties. Where you have houses spaced a mile apart on county roads, there is no way the cost of building and maintaining those roads is paid for by the people living along them and using them. Nor can they possibly pay enough taxes to support the cost of the school buses that transport their kids every day to country schools.

Those few taxpayers simply aren’t paying for the public services they receive, because there aren’t enough taxpayers in those places to support those services. And, of course, the entire eastern Washington agricultural economy exists because of the Columbia River dams, which were largely paid for by urban taxpayers in all the states, because the big cities are where the nation’s population is concentrated and the bulk of government revenues come from.

So who’s kidding whom here? That question answers itself. When I travel in eastern Washington, I hear people over there talk about Seattle as if we’re leeches and they’re supporting us with their taxes. I hope that’s just a sort of local joke and they don’t actually believe that, but I suspect a lot of them do actually believe that, in which case they truly have their heads up their asses.

By the way, the McCleary funding plan proposed by Senate Republicans this spring would have raised King County property taxes to pay for schools all over the state. It looked like the GOP senators for other counties were unwilling for their own constituents to pay a single dime of higher taxes for their own schools; their “solution” was to it up Seattleites for more welfare, so they can continue enjoying their rural lifestyle by living on subsidies from the city slickers they despise so much.

1. The $54 billion price tag is incredibly expensive, and because you can’t keep piling more taxes on people endlessly, the money sucked up by ST will crowd out other needs.

2. King County will now have a sales tax in excess of 10%, and that’s going to impact consumption, hurting the local economy. For example, between the 10%-plus sales tax and the high car tab fees, replacing my aging vehicles with new cars is now off the table. These taxes will deter many people from making discretionary purchases, especially big ticket items like new cars.

3. ST expects hundreds of thousands of people to ride light rail, but at each station, will provide parking for only a few hundred cars. How do they expect riders to get to the station? Especially us oldsters who can’t walk more than a block or two, who can’t ride a bike in the rain without risking pneumonia, and so on. This was a flaw of the late, great, Seattle Monorail scheme, too: By the time the plans got finalized, there was no money for parking at the stations, so there was no parking. That flaw, in my view, is fatal to any mass transit scheme.

4. ST has chosen the most expensive way of doing things possible. To wit, miles-long tunnels that cost nearly a billion dollars a mile. That’s simply insane. I remember reading somewhere (sorry, can’t remember the source) that Seattle’s light rail system is 10 times as expensive as any other light rail system ever built anywhere in the world. That’s nuts. Building a bridge to the moon might be feasible from an engineering standpoint, and even desirable (for whatever reason), but that doesn’t mean we can afford it.

5. I’ll never use light rail. I’m retired, so I don’t commute to a job anymore. I’ll be dead before much of it is built. For senior citizens like me, it’s an unwanted financial burden that returns no benefits.

But, as I said above, the ayes have it, it’s a done deal, and I don’t see the point of continuing to argue about it, nor do I see anything to be gained from complaining about it. I did my arguing and complaining before the election, and I’ve moved on.

@93 “We also voted on the presidency last fall too…yet you clucks keep going on and on about that…”

No, actually, we don’t. Let’s bust that myth right now. Virtually all the liberal posters on HA accept as a fact that Trump is POTUS. That’s a fact, we can’t do anything about it, and we realize that we have to live with it. We criticize the voters who elected him, and his appointments and policies, but that’s different from questioning the election outcome or the winner’s legitimacy. We have every right to do that; that’s part of the ongoing give and take of democracy.

I hope that’s just a sort of local joke and they don’t actually believe that…

You know better than that. The time has long since passed to end the polite pretense. They are fucking leaches who prance about literally on high horses (or jacked up monster trucks) pretending to be something they clearly are not. And then demanding that the rest of society plays along. They are not independent. They are not self-sufficient. They are not burdened. They are the burden. Time to put the burden down forever.

…any idea how many times you brought up the presidential popular vote result?

That’s not the same thing as questioning the legitimacy of the result, literacy genius. (For an example of the latter, see birtherism.)

In fact, we brought it up primarily to contradict your repeated declarations about why “we” lost — to remind you that our ideas are actually more popular, and that elected officials ignore this at peril of their careers.

In other words, we were doing it because we were (and are) looking forwards, not backwards.

In that vein, how’s control of both houses of Congress going for you? Counting your tax savings from repeal of Obacare yet?

@111 “Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit, any idea how many times you brought up the presidential popular vote result?”

Do you have any idea that’s relevant to his ability to get his policies enacted, given that the powers of the presidency are largely persuasive in nature, and our political leaders derive their authority from the consent of the governed? No, of course you don’t, Doctor Dumbfuck. Your understanding of civics is that of a fourth grader, so let me educate you. A president who loses the popular vote is always weaker than one who wins it decisively. Trump, having lost the popular vote by nearly 3%, can hardly claim a mandate. He has no mandate, and that is relevant to the issues we discuss here every day. Comprende? Ah, I’m wasting my time, I’m talking to a brick wall.

@112 “By now Chuck Schumer’s face is as red as the discharge oozing around Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit’s urethral catheter.”

Right now, Gorsuch has exactly 2 Democratic votes, so you’re still 6 short of 60, and it’s not at all certain that you’ll get them. I would say gloating is premature. In fact, it’s questionable that you’re gloating at all, given Gorsuch’s pro-corporation, anti-environment record. Therefore, exactly what are you prattling about, and why do you hate the environment? You have to live in it, too. Btw, I lost the catheter over 10 days ago. There’s plenty of red around here, though. I sloughed a blood clot about half an hour ago and there’s blood all over the floor. Nothing to get excited about. Maybe a stitch came out. It’ll eventually stop.

@114 I see. Tensor’s not paying enough taxes, but I’ll bet you think you’re paying too much. Of course you do, you’re a Republican, and Republicans believe government should be paid for by someone else and benefit only themselves. Those are core principles of theirs.

@116 Is owning property a punishment? You seem to feel it is. Of course, if you put all your money in stocks, as I do, you’d miss out on viewing those pretty sunsets from your front porches, but you’d have more liquidity, which you might find convenient from time to time.

@123 Is this the incisive mind that got you through medical school? No wonder they consigned you to looking at pictures, and didn’t trust you with patients. I’m sure glad I don’t have to depend on you to put in a catheter or take one out. I’d go with a first-year nursing student before I’d let you touch me.

5. I’ll never use light rail. I’m retired, so I don’t commute to a job anymore. I’ll be dead before much of it is built. For senior citizens like me, it’s an unwanted financial burden that returns no benefits.

I’m old. I will never use I-5. The economic benefit of moving goods from Seattle to all coastal areas will never be a benefit to me.

I’m old. I will never see International air travel. An airport is meaningless to me.

I’m old. I will never use vaccines. I’ll be dead. I shouldn’t be asked to pay for science research.

I’m old I’ll never get to the convention center by the time it’s built we shouldn’t build it and never bring people here

Roger says, “So I see Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is seeking immunity from prosecution. It occurs to me the only people who need immunity are those who have committed crimes.”

It occurred to Mile Flynn as well. “When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime,” Flynn said…”

One more time, from one of at least a dozen traitors in the White House who absolutely reek of Putin and who is about to start singing to the Senate, “When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime,” Flynn said…”.

@144 You forgot to ask him how many of those Democrats have been convicted of a crime, starting with Hillary, and working down the list. Parenthetically, I noticed that two of former GOP candidate Christie’s top aides were sentenced to prison this week for crimes against humanity.

Speaking of bridges, an interstate highway bridge in Atlanta collapsed last night, creating a major traffic crisis in that city. (The effect is like closing Seattle’s I-5 for months.) On paper, this would be a good place for Trump to start his infrastructure program, but don’t count on it. Republicans weren’t willing to spend a dime on infrastructure repairs and rebuilding during the Great Recession when we could have used the jobs. Now, this kind of stimulus will only create inflation, and they won’t get anything built because there’s already a shortage of construction workers.

Washington Senator Maria Cantwell announced in a press release that she will vote against confirming Trump Supreme Court pick Judge Neil Gorsuch, who conservatives want as the replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Cantwell also made clear that she will join a Democratic filibuster of Gorsuch.

Not to mention that Dumbfuck, being Dumbfuck, gotta Dumbfuck and not notice the difference between a witness being offered immunity and a witness seeking immunity. Those are not the same things, and they are unlikely to lead to the same result. In Clinton’s case, the investigation ended without charges against anyone named Clinton or in the employ of anyone named Clinton. There’s no reason to believe Flynn or his cohorts will exit this investigation equally unscathed.

One of the things I’ve become fascinated with lately is the so-called “sovereign citizens” movements around the world. Now, anyone can make a claim to certain rights under the Law or the Constitution, but it seems as though the whole thing has gone to the point where people assume for themselves that they are the sole purveyors of the correct interpretation and have the absolute certainty what the Law means in spite of how it’s worded. They believe they can weasel their way out of trouble by offering up a reinterpretation of the law that suits their personal situation.

I think of it as the Humpty-Dumpty method of Law. What it is is Calvinball with words.

These folks are generally not well educated, have no sense of detail or the basic reading comprehension that the corresponding understanding of Law requires. Poe’s Law is that little rule that states that people who are less intelligent tend to overrate their own intelligence and abilities, and assume they are more intelligent than they really are, whereas people who do have a high degree of intelligence tend to underrate their own abilities, and tend to be in situations where they are surrounded by people who have authority over them who may not be as capable of making detailed decisions, but have the sociopolitical clout to do so, often because they’ve sent their careers just being the loudest or the most agreeable person in the room.

It’s an old adage that “the squeakiest wheel gets the grease”, but a major aspect of that is the fact that the wheel in question always also seems to be the most sycophantic with regard to higher authority. Thus, an individual who is highly skilled at personalizing their relationships with authority figures and kissing the right asses is often the individual who has spent a lifetime cultivating an entirely submissive and agreeable relationship with the authority figures they encounter. Once that has gotten to a certain point, the sycophant then has personal association and credibility with that authority and has the ability to manufacture whatever narrative they choose in pretty much any situation in order to further their own ambitions.

Alcoholics are famous for their ability to manipulate the people around them. They’ve made excuses for everything for their entire lives, and seem to have developed the sense of vocabulary that works for them in this manner. This comes out of the strong need to hide their problems, at pretty much any cost.

So, the “sovereign citizen” is someone who apparently has no sense of their own misapprehended belief about something such as the Law. They are personally powerless, often because they’ve blown their own personal credibility on a subject because they’re merely stupid, or being minor criminals or bad drivers or drunks, they are people who demand credibility and personal power based on their own interpretation of the Law when they’ve already become reputed as someone who is more concerned with just staying out of trouble while doing all those things that get people in hot water with authority figures.

This is of course becomes very problematic when they have mental health issues, addictions or a long history of being absolutely wrong about something and people become annoyed with them to the point where those people can just assume that the individual is totally full of shit no matter what the situation.

So they find ways to deflect responsibility for their actions, blaming some hidden agenda on the part of another individual or a shadowy force that only they can comprehend, and they know with absolute certainty that their own actions are out of their personal control. Thus it is with religion. It seems to me that the deeply religious are always talking about how God is in control, and God guides their lives in all things so they cannot be held responsible for those actions, no matter how egregious.

I submit the notion that people who were raised to be deeply religious or have somehow fallen into hardline ideology of a particular religion, be that a political or social religion, tend to develop a high sensitivity to the words that authorities around them want to hear, and are always ready to make a statement in their own defense as to why they are not personally responsible and cannot allow themselves to submit to whatever authority they have come up against. They are apparently mostly people with a childlike picture of the world around them, and have the child’s perception of how the world works. They seem to believe that they can stomp their feet and scream until they get what they want.

Mitt Romney, Donald Trump and so many members of Congress are apparently people who have never been told “no” in a way that the authority can make stick. They’ve never really been held to account for their own responsibility in a matter. They always find workarounds or make stupid excuses for their actions, and pretend that they are the only authority on a subject and somehow this exempts themselves from scrutiny or legal retribution.

We have one such individual in my State Legislative district, a State Senator who has skipped out on scores of legislative sessions, and has never once submitted a bill that has even been passed out of committee. He flagrantly ignores the very law that he took an oath to uphold, and has pretty much gone into hiding with the Trumppp administration while deliberately ignoring his responsibilities to the State office that he was elected to hold.

This is flagrantly unconstitutional and he knows it full well. He has been called out on it and ignores the issue entirely. Yet he continues to have a lot of support, mostly with the hardline Calvinists/White Supremacists and sovereign citizen types that inhabit this County. The very same people who call themselves “strict constructionists” when it comes to Constitutional law.

So, my question is, why is it that the Law is only applicable to people willing to submit to it? Is it a matter of just ignoring it until someone with real authority to enforce it goes up against them? Why isn’t the Governor enforcing the Law in this case?

@152. There is no downside for a democrat not supporting Goresuck. Democrats voting for Goresuck in the hope of appeasing trump voters is doomed to fail. If they don’t get re-elected, it won’t for this.

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